Thursday, August 27, 2009

Staying at my parents house this week has made me feel like I am reliving my teenage years. Before you think that things are going to get all nostalgic up in here, let me assure you that reliving my teenage years is something I hoped never to do. Let's just say that if I ever got a chance to be 17 again (like in that lame movie with the annoying guy from Friends and that annoying kid with the exhibitionist girlfriend, both of whom would be nothing if it wasn't for Disney), I would save the varsity football team some trouble and shove myself into a locker all on my own.

The things that I am getting a chance to re-experience here are not the things of fond memories with rosy vignettes. There have been no games of catch in the backyard, no freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, no laughter around the dinner table at a funny joke. No, these things are the stuff that repressed memories are made of, the worst of which are best saved for tacky therapist couches.

Take last night, for example. I made one last trip downstairs to the bathroom before bed, and as I passed through the living room I witnessed my dad sitting on the couch in his boxers and a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, trimming his toenails while watching the 11pm news. He had one leg crossed over the other, with a pile of jagged nail clippings balanced carefully on his knee. With each squeeze of the trimmer, a loud click echoed off of the walls. He would pick up the sliver of toenail, inspect it carefully up close, and then put it with the rest of the clippings on his knee.

If only The Boss had been there, she would have had an illuminating glimpse of what she can expect me to look like 20 years into the future, and be able to plan for our divorce accordingly.

I used the bathroom and retreated back upstairs, and read for a while until I heard the TV shut off downstairs. I shut off the lamp on my nightstand and stared off into the dark. As if seeing way too much of my fathers pasty-white thighs wasn't traumatizing enough for one night, I was just about to drift off when I heard something. I sat up on one elbow and focused my ears on the sound... and almost immediately wished I hadn't.

I wished that I had ignored the sound. I wished I was deaf. I wished that a hurricane would form right over the house and the howling wind would drown it out. I wished that Fran Drescher would suddenly appear and laugh loudly in my face... Anything but what I feared the noise truly was.

I told myself that the noises I heard coming from my parents bedroom directly below me were not what I thought it was.

My parents just snore differently than most people, that's all, I assured myself.

Maybe they are just trying to pass some gas.

The noise was probably from their mattress, from them positioning - NO! Don't say the word position! - getting comfortable before going to sleep.

Surely it will be over soon. They're just fluffing their pillows or something.

Or something.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending upon your perspective), life as a teenager had prepared me for such a situation, as my bedroom in the house I grew up in was also right above my parents. There were many nights where I fell asleep with my pillow over my head or with my clock radio on, trying my hardest not to hear my parents get it on.

At least I know that even with an empty nest, my parents aren't trapped in a love-less marriage. Although, I would have been okay with not having heard the proof of that fact first-hand.

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Comments:

Nothing worse than hearing your parents getting down and dirty. Actually there is, hearing your Mother getting down and dirty while your Dad is away on business.... It is good to see that your parents love each other though. Although they could do it a bit more quietly.

HHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa...and I only laugh because it is not my own parents. Whom I heard one time in the middle of the night. While it is great they are still in love enough to do that dance, I need NEVER hear the soundtrack.

I will send some vodka so you can rinse your ears. And your cerebellum.

I AM really sorry for you...But I gotta say, I am glad that your parents are still, um, active? Just too bad you have to spend your 401K to get the sounds out of your head. I called my folks one night because we wanted to go over and swim in their pool...the response was "No, we want to go skinny dippin' tonight"...Um...yea. Ok. We'll stay away. Far away.

horrifying. my mom tries to tell me romantical/personal stuff sometimes. I guess because now we're both married ladies? Like you, glad to know gettin' it on is still on the agenda for my mid-life, but still. No details required.

I would have died! Or made me presence really well know by jumping up and down on the floor.

My husband and I recently had to stay at my parents house because we were moving. The second we got there, we immediately regretted it. My mother and I instantly reverted back to the days of being 16 years old. It was terrible. But you experience, way worse.

My mother told me the other day she wasn't going to tell me about her weekend in Milan with my dad, because it would be "too much information". Which was too much information. But at least I didn't have to listen to them actually getting it on.

That is a great post, and gives us all hope about our senior years, oh, wait, my senior years are here and I can so relate to your parents. Good for them. And good for you for giving them space and for seeing them just for what they are and for loving them.

You bunch of wimps. Try thinking of it the other way round ... it really stifles my sex life knowing my teenage kids are in the next room ... we have to be so quiet, we can't do it at other times of day or in other rooms. But I love the fun of freaking them with the idea that I still have sex, I consider it one of the perks of parenting teens:-) And I think I've coped pretty good with them having sex lives of their own.thanks for sharingmuch love Martine

I totally thought you were going a different direction with this and was (ack!) surprised that it was your folks getting it on! I thought you were gonna reveal how frisky *you* feel upon return visits to the 'rents' house for all the leftover forbidden-ness swirling about from your youth.

Haha, man, this is how I feel whenever I stay at my mom's house. There's no rosy teenager reality there, only black nail polish and long walks around the neighborhood - anything to get out of the house. But hey, don't poopoo therapists' couches, we loves us some repressed memories! :) And yes, as people have said previously, maybe it's kind of hopeful that a) they have a love-full marriage and that b) "it" can still go on even after (what I assume are) many years of marriage... Maybe? Sorta?